


A Completely Normal Session of Sburb Functioning As Intended

by Magfrump



Category: Homestuck
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-02
Updated: 2020-01-16
Packaged: 2020-11-15 02:09:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20858474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Magfrump/pseuds/Magfrump
Summary: OCs only, nerd.





	1. Chapter 1

A young man lies alone on his bed. He has been failing to go to sleep for a few hours. A novelty alarm clock shaped like Taz from Looney Tunes reveals that it is now the early hours of this young man’s thirteenth birthday. The stars are doubly visible on his solar system themed curtains and the night behind them. The young man tosses and turns in his bed.

What is this young man’s name?

==> FROG BOTTOM

That is an absolutely ridiculous name! And it is far too early in the story for frogs to be involved yet! It is definite NOT TIME FOR THAT--

A frog jumps into the windowsill, then from there jumps on to the young man’s bare stomach, revealed in the tangled mass of bedsheets. The young man jerks awake, and the frog jumps away alarmed to hide in a basket of toys tucked away under one corner of his bed. It is absolutely shameful that this is happening before the young man has been given a name. It is unconscionable and illegal. The only possible recourse we have is to give the young man a name right now, then backdate the paperwork by five minutes.

What is this young man’s name?

==> GREG HALLEY

Greg retrieves the malfeasant amphibian from the TOY BOX using his QUICKSORT fetch modus. His captchalogue, properly emptied for the night, now contains four cards, the first of which holds the MALFEASANT AMPHIBIAN.

With an empty fetch modus it is easy for him to let the little creature outside, where it jumps out into the rains of the pacific northwest.

When Greg returns to his bed, he discovers that he is being pestered by one of his many INTERNET FRIENDS whose handle is EntangledDirectionality.

ED: how’s it going dude  
OM: it’s like three in the morning dude  
OM: I’m trying to sleep  
ED: oh shit, sorry  
ED: time is so weird and confusing  
OM: it’s inevitable march is my one true nemesis  
OM: but a frog just jumped in my window so  
OM: I’m probably going to be up for a while if you had something to chat about  
ED: do you want to play some video games?  
OM: and I see we’re back to ignoring relevant context  
OM: remember how I’m in bed  
ED: right, i forget that not everyone lives in the future  
ED: where they can just hook up their PC to work in bed  
ED: like i do  
ED: because I like playing video games  
ED: unlike you i guess  
ED: you have important things to do instead of kill time  
ED: like “sleep” and “go to school” and “eat lunch”  
ED: yuppie  
OM: this is stupid. I’m turning off notifications so I can get some sleep.

Greg logs off of his pesterchum account, OrbitalMachiavelli, pulls his sheets up over his own eyes, then lets them down so that he can stare at the twin sets of stars as he falls asleep.

==> BE THE OTHER GUY

You find yourself unable to be the other guy yet. It seems that he is both (a) busy playing video games in bed like a NERD and (b) very confusing. Perhaps we could try being someone else first.

==> BE SOMEONE ELSE

You try being someone else.

======>

Another young man stands alone in his room. At least, he is alone in the sense of there being no other sentient being in the room. From another perspective, however, he is accompanied by a large number of entities and influences. In a metaphorical sense, the author of every book on the shelf is present in the room.

In fact, the idea of all of these people, mostly old white men whose works are disproportionately supported and remembered by society, is making this young man uncomfortable. As the conceptual presences close in, he even begins to experience social anxiety.

The ideas of Mark Twain, Friedrich Nietzsche, Karl Marx, and Gary Gygax each lean their prodigious facial hair uncomfortably close to the young man. In another corner, Naomi Novik and Ursula K Le Guin seem to be gossiping about Edgar Allen Poe, who in another corner is nonplussed by the attentions of Jules Verne and Lord Byron.

That is a whole lot of nonsense and it is time for these clowns to go home. To the carnival. Where clowns live. The concepts of authors settle down and ride the horse tornado all the way to the dark carnival, the young man is finally truly alone and we can get to know his various interests.

While considering his MANY AND VARIED INTERESTS, the young man turns to his DVD copies of the first three seasons of The Good Place. The tumultuous moral journeys of that Arizona dirtbag and her unlikely compatriots never fails to delight him or inform his detailed considerations of moral philosophy.

Oh, the rudeness! The young man has not even taken the time to introduce himself! This absolutely barbaric discrepancy between moral considerations and directly ethical actions is exactly why everyone hates moral philosophy professors.

The young man introduces himself as Alan Dennet. He likes MORAL PHILOSOPHY, reading WORKS OF CLASSIC LITERATURE, and most of all he enjoys WRITING HIS OPINIONS ON PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE in CONTROLLED SOCIAL CIRCUMSTANCES where he is NOT DIRECTLY CONFRONTED WITH THE PHYSICAL REALITY OF OTHER HUMANS.

What shall this young man do?


	2. Chapter 2

==> The young man should re arrange his book shelf according to cover color rather than contents. Make a nice rainbow.

The young man frowns as he considers your suggestion.

Certainly, he muses, rainbows are nice and pretty and it would be an excellent visual decoration to include in his room.

However making such a big change is not to be taken lightly! These books constitute a huge variety of influences on Alan’s mind! The organization of the room thus mimics the organization of the mind, filed and styled in kind with the knowledge that has been developed over the many years of this young man’s life.

To rearrange the books would be to manipulate a symbolic map of civilization’s knowledge! And while the map may be distinct from the category, in a symbolic medium such as the one he finds himself in, is there such a strong distinction? Or would putting “Principles of Philosophy” next to “Seabiscuit” fundamentally rearrange the way his brain functions? Would it cause some kind of epistemological paradox? Or would there be no problem putting Descartes before the horse?

Alan stares at the two thematically unrelated light blue books, eyes widening and mouth silently moving for an unknown and unknowable length of time before being distracted by a notification on his phone. It seems that this young man is being pestered.

\-- observationalEnthusiasm [OE] began pestering dialecticalOntology [DO] at 22:15 --

OE: stop staring at the books  
OE: just make a rainbow like they asked  
OE: its easier this way  
DO: Huh?  
DO: Oh, yes, I see that I was staring for some time there!  
DO: I should direct my attentions to more suitable pursuits.  
DO: Perhaps I will take your encouragements to heart and pursue the most whimsical exhortations of my soul!  
OE: ugh yeah just make a rainbow  
OE: dont type at me more I hate reading this and they hate writing it  
DO: I do agree that the script based format loses something when it is not well distinguished visually. I should update the application on my mobile computing device and will return to a more dignified approach of action post haste.

Alan places his phone back in his pocket, and begins the painful process of loading his bookshelf into his VIRTUAL SWAP MEMORY fetch modus.

As each book is fetched, the book is converted into a snapshot captchalogue card code, the card code is run through a unique hash combination function, the unique hash combination function is applied to a Cruxite Abstract Dowel, the carved abstract dowl is placed on a stack of previously existing carved abstract dowels, and the stack is recaptchalogued onto the single card of the sylladex.

This absurd process is then independently repeated for each book in the library.

It is going to be a long night for Alan.

Alan fondly recalls his friend's assurance that this would be easier, and chuckles and shakes his head.


	3. Chapter 3

Fortunately for Alan, and for you there in the audience, he has not captchalogued his phone, but rather designated it in his strife specibus under the TouchScreenKind abstratus. While rather weak offensively, its utility alongside the VIRTUAL SWAP MEMORY fetch modus is hard to overstate.

Alan therefore takes this opportunity to reach out to a friend to validate his decision.

\-- dialecticalOntology began pestering entangledDirectionality --

DO: Greetings and salutations my honorable associate  
DO: I have begun to engage in an activity which might be considered a game of sorts!  
ED: like a video game  
ED: you getting on fortnite like a fuckin rube  
ED: or are you balling up and gonna scrape together a virtual lan and play diablo 2 with me  
ED: like someone with fuckin balls  
DO: Ha, no, no.  
DO: I have devised a new system of organization for my personal library.  
DO: The game relates to mapping the physical presentation of the library objects such as books onto the organizational abstraction.  
DO: That is, determining which of these shades of blue is closer to or further from green as opposed to purple.  
ED: youre sorting books  
ED: into a rainbow  
ED: and you want me to look at colors  
DO: Yes, you’ve grasped the essence of my explanation quite readily!  
ED: first off gay  
ED: second lame  
ED: third im in  
ED: send me booky pics  
ED: thats supposed to be like, booty pics, but books  
ED: you get it  
\-- DO sent ShadesOfBlue12082019.jpg  
DO: I hope you can see my conundrum. Perhaps I would do best to implicitly sort within each color scheme by saturation?  
ED: dude is that seabiscuit the book about the horse  
ED: i didnt know you liked horses  
ED: we should play untitled horse game  
ED: or horse simulater 9000  
ED: just be a horse  
ED: be majestic as shit  
ED: fuck everything up  
ED: im gonna go update my installs now  
DO: Well, I appreciate your enthusiasm! I would not necessarily call myself a devotee of equine lore, though certainly I can appreciate a majestic faunum.  
DO: It is more of a piece of my collection dedicated to rounding out my education, as any young gentleman should be cognizant of all those relations between Mankind and the various species of Beast which exist alongside Him.  
ED: yeah sounds pretty fuckin gay imo  
ED: run with it tho like  
ED: lets be horses  
ED: thats like one of those memes of like  
ED: acronyms for boomers  
ED: lbh: lets be horses  
ED: lol: lassoing other ladies  
ED: eh that was kinda shit  
ED: wyd: something something dressage  
ED: this joke is turning out to be too much effort  
ED: lets play diablo  
DO: I’m certain that your familiarity with my computational hardware landscape has not so far lapsed that you think me capable of both this rearrangement and playing of a time-sensitive action-oriented computer game!  
DO: I have many miles to go before I sleep, and seven bookshelves to sort.  
ED: yeah yeah i just figured id give it a shot see if i could get you to stop bein lame  
ED: oh well  
ED: not gonna work out youre gonna be about as lame as a one armed man before the invention of modern prosthetics  
ED: lame as a horse that needs to get shot  
ED: because otherwise it will live out its pained existence lying on the floor all pathetic as shit  
ED: not enjoying itself or contributing to society  
ED: like a bug in a game that just makes the game crash and you cant even exploit that shit  
ED: not like a cool bug where you get infinite items and turn your boat into a skateboard with infinite hit points  
ED: that sounds like a rad game  
DO: You and your digital entertainment obsessions! Perhaps you’d do well to consider the classical works of literature, whereupon a limitless source of novel media experiences would await you, and you might regale me with tales of those real and imagined persons of whom the greatest minds of our and all other times have deigned to paint with their words and attentions.  
DO: I would consider it an improvement over your regaling of me with repeated tales of how you have once again played Diablo 2 and consequently bemoaned the more recent creative failings of one Blizzard Video Games Studios LLC Incorporated or whatever it is.  
ED: man i been listenin to your bs all night why you gotta talk shit on my bs  
ED: play a game with a dude dont taunt me with your gradations of light blue bs  
ED: i got cow necromancers to murder and whatev

\-- ED stopped pestering DO --

Hm. Perhaps that was not well handled, Alan thinks to himself.

Privately you agree, enough that you might phrase it ever so slightly more harshly. But you allow Alan to process at his own pace, since you wouldn’t want to push him so much that he rebounds and rebels against your advice.

Helping young people with their relationships is so difficult! It’s hard. It’s hard and nobody understands.


	4. Chapter 4

Let’s try being the first guy again. His compassion for his… ahem… indiscrete amphibious companion seemed to be the mark of a true gentleman, who would not leave his friends hanging in the lurch. In fact, hold your breath, because he might just turn out to be the kind of cool dude who would actually play a video game with his friend instead of just stringing him along with jokes about rainbow books all the time.

==> GREG: AWAKEN

Greg Halley stretches his arms, breaking the vacuum-tight seal he used to tuck himself in. While existing within the endless expanse that is the cold and empty uncaring universe, it is important to keep oneself feeling cozy.

Greg carefully folds the sheets to one side so he can get up without disrupting them terribly, then rapidly captchalogues his usual daily assortment of inventory items, starting with his APPLE IPHONE

[ APPLE IPHONE ]

His telescope

TELESCOPE > APPLE IPHONE  
[ APPLE IPHONE,  
TELESCOPE ]

His government-mandated sasquatch-proof suit

SASQUATCH-PROOF SUIT < TELESCOPE  
SASQUATCH-PROOF SUIT > APPLE IPHONE  
[ APPLE IPHONE,  
SASQUATCH-PROOF SUIT,  
TELESCOPE ]

And the key to the mailroom

MAILROOM KEY < SASQUATCH-PROOF SUIT  
MAILROOM KEY > APPLE IPHONE  
[ APPLE IPHONE,  
MAILROOM KEY,  
SASQUATCH-PROOF SUIT,  
TELESCOPE ]

Greg sensibly leaves his modus sort-criterion on dictionary ordering, leaving his phone in the first (and therefore accessible) card slot.

Greg then remembers that it is his birthday. That’s the whole reason we came to meet him in the first place, so it would have been lame if he forgot his own birthday.

Greg shudders involuntarily at the thought, imagining the passing of countless and uncounted rainy days under the overcast skies of his home. Guarded by clouds that no season or sunbeam can pierce, until he has been so removed from the concept of time that it loses meaning to him, leaving him alone and both aging and ageless as his body decays.

Greg decides that it is time to wake up, so he goes to the local starbucks auto-pod robo-barista, which has recently and conveniently opened up on the other side of his bedroom. The really surprising part of this development is that the zoning board allowed it. Greg considers carefully before acquiring a paper cup from the dispenser, filling it with hot coffee topped with a bit of cream, then switching his modus’ sort function to COMPUTATIONAL COMPLEXITY before drinking, so that he can easily store his cup in the accessible slot and continue drinking at his leisure. The modus automatically shuffles its contents via QUICKSORT:

APPLE IPHONE, [ ], [ ]

MAILROOM KEY < APPLE IPHONE

APPLE IPHONE, [ MAILROOM KEY ], [ ]

SASQUATCH-PROOF SUIT < APPLE IPHONE

APPLE IPHONE, [ MAILROOM KEY, SASQUATCH-PROOF SUIT], [ ]

TELESCOPE < APPLE IPHONE

APPLE IPHONE, [ MAILROOM KEY, SASQUATCH-PROOF SUIT, TELESCOPE ], [ ]

MAILROOM KEY, [ ], [ ]

SASQUATCH-PROOF SUIT < MAILROOM KEY

MAILROOM KEY, [ SASQUATCH-PROOF SUIT ], [ ]

TELESCOPE > MAILROOM KEY

MAILROOM KEY, [ SASQUATCH-PROOF SUIT], [TELESCOPE]

[ SASQUATCH-PROOF SUIT, MAILROOM KEY, TELESCOPE, APPLE IPHONE ]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is way shorter than I wanted it to be but I committed to posting one chapter per meeting of my book club rereading homestuck and I already gave myself several extra days to make something happen and failed and tomorrow I'm going out of town, so enjoy or be disappointed or whatever


End file.
